We’ve been working on our Key Stage 3 Geography curriculum for several years now and we are starting to see our efforts begin to pay off with regards to the deliberate sequencing of knowledge. In this short post, I am going to reflect on a single, but significant, moment from my last lesson of the term with a Year 8 class.

During this lesson, in which I was introducing the formation of the Sierra Nevada region in the USA, I included a retrieval task at the start of the lesson based on the image below.

Students were asked to recall knowledge they had first acquired during Year 7 and had then covered again earlier in Year 8. Following a brief discussion and a little CFU (checking for understanding), I asked students to write an explanation of what was happening. I think it’s important to note that this wasn’t a quiz or list of 10 recall questions. Instead, this retrieval task required students to remember information and write several sentences to explain the sequence of events, not something which is easily done without reasonable knowledge and understanding of the processes involved.

Moving around the class, I was pleased to see the vast majority of students were able to confidently put pen to paper. The usual one-to-one support was needed in some parts of the room, but this was little more than a few prompts, questions or direction of how to start.

To provide students with feedback and ensure they had an opportunity to correct or improve their answers, I walked them through my answer whilst pointing to key features on the diagram. After each statement, I asked students to raise their hands if they had included a similar point, sentence or key term. Met with a sea of arms throughout most of my explanation, I was confident that we could move on to the focus of the current lesson, ‘How did the Sierra Nevada region form?’

The next phase of the lesson involved a full page of challenging text which included these opening paragraphs…

Study suggests parts of the Sierra Nevada formed in a “geologic instant,” more than twice as fast as previously thought.

Although we can’t see it in action, the Earth is constantly churning out new land. This can take place at subduction zones, where tectonic plates move towards each other and in the process create chains of volcanoes as one plate is forced under another. Some of this magma does not spew out, but instead mixes and morphs just below the surface. It then crystallizes as new continental crust, in the form of a mountain range.

Scientists have thought that the Earth’s mountain ranges are formed through this process over many millions of years. But MIT geologists have now found that the planet can generate new land far more quickly than previously thought.

By deliberately including this specific retrieval task at the start of the lesson, the opening passage of text was something the students already understood. Not only did this give them great confidence, but it meant they had an understanding of the vocabulary and, more importantly, an image in their minds of what was happening.

As we continued to read through the text, students had engaged their prior knowledge onto which they could attach new learning. This allowed for more effective learning of new knowledge but also the embedding of their previous understanding of the tectonic processes involved.

So how did we get to this stage?

During Year 7, we have written a unit which introduces tectonics for the first time and focusses on the physical processes occurring within the Earth’s interior. The process of subduction and the reasons why it happens are important. The basic concepts are introduced with regards to plate margins, and examples are shared from around the world Students participate in the drawing and labelling of diagrams, before being able to explain each type of margin.

A year later, in the early parts of Year 8, students revisit these ideas as they explore how ocean basins are created and destroyed. Here, the processes associated with plate movement are applied to the Wilson Cycle. Students once again are expected to use geographical vocabulary to explain processes, this time applying previous learning to a new area of geographical study.

So by the time these processes are brought in for a third time, during my lesson on Friday, most students were confident in their understanding and able to recall explanations with relative ease. At worst, some gentle prompting is required to get students on their way. Not only this, but I was then able to introduce even more complex disciplinary knowledge through a piece of challenging text. This would not have been possible had the relevant background understanding have not been available to students.

As 3pm arrived and the term came to an end, I was left with the pleasant thought that what we are doing is having a positive impact on learning with students now engaging with, and applying, geographical knowledge and understanding at a far higher level than I have experienced previously. I can’t think of a better way to head in to the school holidays!

Reflection

• Retrieval practice does not have to be a quiz or series of recall questions. Instead, students can focus on one area of prior learning, shared through an appropriate task/format, to activate this for the current lesson.

• The deliberate sequencing of the curriculum is essential if important ideas and concepts are to be learned, embedded and built upon over time.